LOGISTICS
Most of the 60 refugees who have come over, have arrived with simply the clothes on their backs and possibly a backpack or a small bag. They have nothing and most have no money because no one is taking or exchanging rubles. They need everything: food, clothing, shoes, jackets, hygiene products, makeup, hair dryers, toys for the children… One had her eyeglasses break on the way over. A couple have arrived in their own cars, but most have no transportation or the money to buy gas if they did have transportation.
We, with the aid you and many others have sent, are helping them get set up for life again here in Croatia. We are registering them for refugee status which gives them rights to find work, social healthcare, and schooling for their children. We are also registering them with the Red Cross because this gives them rights to governmental financial aid.
We have them enrolled in a free online language course three days a week which was set up by the government for the refugees. We are helping them look for jobs and have rented a van for a month so that we can transport them to job interviews, interviews with the police, take them to doctor’s appointments, move them into apartments when they get themselves settled, ect.
However, all of this is costing much more than we initially expected. Their needs are much greater than we anticipated, and we did not expect to be handling 60 refugees with more wanting to come over all the time. It is way too much work for our coordinators, Daniel and Gris Behin, so we are actively looking for a second person who will be able to assist them.